As we were driving from Belgium to Italy today, I kept on being astonished about the beauty of the scenery... We do this drive every year. But this year, something was really different, as a lot of the trees were already in bloom, or sprouting green leaves. Too much, too early.I thought of my previous posts on global warming, and specifically what this weather change could mean for developing countries.

Tonight, I checked the humanitarian news headlines. Coincidence (or not?) I saw in the headlines a new report came out today in which climate experts issued the starkest warning yet about the impact of global warming, ranging from hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the Himalayas.More than 100 nations in the U.N. climate panel agreed to a final text from a report driven by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC groups 2,500 scientists and is the world authority on climate change.

The report said warming, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, would cause desertification, droughts and rising seas and would hit hard in the tropics, from sub-Saharan Africa to Pacific islands. "It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.

PS: The "Humanitarian Headlines" I referred to, you can find on the bottom of the right column on this page. A more complete overview you can read on a new blog I started using an automatic news aggregator. While the -automatically updated- articles are in English, the framing is in Dutch. I will make an English humanitarian news aggregator soon! [update April 9: It is done. Try out The Other World News ] Pictures courtesy WFP-Stephanie Savariaud (Burundi Flooding) and Alf Ellefsen (Afghanistan drought)

Change Starts Here

Links

As the years went by, I collected a large amount of blogs and websites I like:

● The largest collection of blogs by fellow aidworkers you'll find anywhere
● Resources for aidworkers
● News sites specialized in aid, humanitarian work and nonprofit causes
● Expats, travellers, adventurers and people with their heart in the right place, you can find here